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We’re in S G M

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across the Grand Canal from S M in Venice.

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And we’re looking at Tintoretto’s 'Last Supper.'

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It’s located in the sanctuary of the church –

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on the right wall

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And it’s huge.

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This is such an untraditional version

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of this subject – very mannerist.

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We’re so used to looking at Leonardo da Vinci’s

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Last Supper in Milan.

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That’s a painting where the table

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is drawn across horizontally –

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which is such a high Renaissance example

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of the use of linear perspective –

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with Christ as the vanishing point –

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at the very center of the painting –

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at the very center of the table.

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And here, everything is askew.

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And Leonardo uses natural light – without halos.

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Christ is framed by a window.

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But here, the figure of Christ actually glows from within –

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in a return to spiritual symbolism.

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And the spiritual permeates the entire space of this painting

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in a very evident way.

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Light is central to understanding this painting.

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There are really only two light sources here

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in this very dark painting

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Closer to us, on the upper left,

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you have a lantern,

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which just dances with light

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and flame and smoke.

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And then there’s the divine emanation.

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And from that lamp, in the upper left,

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angels are illuminated.

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And we see them floating all over the ceiling.

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It’s not that high Renaissance way of

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indicating the spiritual through the natural –

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through reality.

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Here, Tintoretto is not afraid to paint angels.

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There is a kind of divine revelation.

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The light that emanates

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from Christ’s halo seems quite strong.

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If you look at the woman

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who kneels in the foreground –

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slightly to the right –

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you’ll see that, in Christ’s light,

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her head casts a deep shadow

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that [creates] a diagonal that points us towards Christ.

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And then the apostles around the table

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also have halos of light –

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although smaller than the light from Christ.

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But this painting is all about energy.

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It’s all about drama.

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Look at the way the primary diagonal of the table

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moves us back with incredible speed

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back to a vanishing point

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in the upper right corner of the painting.

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And actually, I’m not even sure

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that it’s a correct use of linear perspective.

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That table tilts forward –

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So that he’s playing fast and loose

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with those very ideas that were so critical

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to the high Renaissance –

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like linearperspective.

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Pictorial spaces seem literally up ended.

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The space rises so steeply, and so dramatically,

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and so quickly.

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And form itself seems to have dissolved

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under the power of his line and color.

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Tintoretto said that his goal

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was to unite the two different traditions

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of the Florentine Renaissance

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and the Venetian Renaissance –

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the line of the Tuscan tradition of Michelangelo

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and the color of Titian.

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He had a sign written on his studio wall

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that said exactly that.

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When I look at this painting

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I feel pulled in different directions.

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I feel pulled by the velocity

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of the orthogonals of the table.

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And then I feel pulled by the light around Christ.

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And then I also feel pulled to anecdotal details

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that are around the periphery.

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The figure serving food on the right, for example.

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or in the foreground.

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Or the apostles reacting and talking to each other,

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after Christ’s words,

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”Take this bread, for this is my body,” and,

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“Take this wine, for this is my blood"

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and Christ has stood up [and] turned.

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[And] seems to be offering the bread.

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And so we have the literal enactment

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of the Eucharist.

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It’s much more active.

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I want to go back to that idea of the anecdotal.

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Yes, the woman's serving food.

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But notice that she’s reaching into a basket.

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And a cat happens to be looking in that basket, as well.

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There is this very solemn event that's taking place.

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And yet, at the same time, it's surrounded

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by elements that are simply not important.

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and make this a human event.

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That's right. Make it, in a way, more real

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than the pared down, harmonious, balanced image

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that Leonardo gives us of the Last Supper.

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And that's what I find so incongruous

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about this dark painting.

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and all of its solemnity – yes – but all of its energy

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within this very staid environment

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of the church by P – S G M.

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We are in a pristine, white building.

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And yet this painting is so dark and so mysterious.

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And yet Paladio has made everything evident of us.

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with its classicism, its order, its precision, its logic,

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its rationality.

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And then, in this Tintoretto, we enter into

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the realm of the spiritural – the supernatural.

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This is not the realm of the rational at all.

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We move from the high Renaissance

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classicism of Paladio into the mannerism of a Tintoretto.